What is the best way of running an Astrophotography set-up in the field. (I started this thread because this discussion hijacked my other thread)
I define "In the Field" as anywhere you cannot get local wifi. The challenge with Indi/ekos on the RPI, or any other compute box, is that you need some way of seeing what is going on, that will inevitably mean a lap-top and then a way of connecting that Laptop, either a cable or wifi.
I take my travel Astro Gear on vacation (last year to La Palma in February, great clear skies and warm weather)
My standard travel kit was Stellarmate/Pi, Skywatcher AZ-GTi WiFi Mount, Canon 350D and 300mm lens/ 80mm Telescope plus Dell XPS laptop which also contains my Processing software: DSS , Startools and lightroom.
I experimented with various forms of connection at home. I tried Stellarmate Hotspot: too unreliable, a separate mobile hotspot device and finally settled on using the built in wifi in the AZ-GTI in Hotspot Mode: see this useful guide:
indilib.org/devices/telescopes/az-gti.html . Under this arrangement all devices connect to the mount, including my Android tablet with the Synscan App.
It all worked great at home when I tested it, the problem was that in the field if there was a connectivity/boot problem with the RPI, I needed to use a direct cable to see what was going on, and if it was a boot problem I needed to connect the RPI to a display via an HDMI cable to fix it, and connect a mini-mouse/keyboard.
So after a couple of trips with time wasted on technical trouble shooting I ended up going the simplest route. I just connected everything to the laptop. Faster setup, much more reliable. Unfortunately in the past I had to use APT. But now of course there is
EKOS for Windows
. I have recently downloaded this and it looks wonderful, plus it can connect to your RPI etc setup at home.
So now I have a much simpler, lighter, reliable and cable reduced set-up and I can concentrate on the Skies not Systems
Topic Author
